Not long before the door opened behind John and Larson, a battle ensued between Tain, the daughter of the Captain, and one of the pirate leaders who wields an axe.

Tain’s crew, including Aaron, watched the fight, trying to keep up with the speed of her steps and the pirate’s strength. Each flurry of attacks seemed meaningless against his armour while his quick reactions made it hard for her to stay within range to strike. Hit and run. Once more she tried to step behind the towering man but merely got to see his pressure tank and the pipe hanging out of it. She was caught. The axe’s propulsion turned him around to cleave at her. As she was unable to dodge, she tried shielding the attack with her rapiers, leading the sword in her left to be snapped in half.

Swiftly retreating a couple of steps, she saw a rusty old scimitar left on the ground from one of the pirates.

Her opponent’s face in anger, knowing what she was about to do, he marched to her to strike. She dodged, adding to his rage.

“I hate mice like you! Constantly on the run!” he shouted, spit frothing out of his mouth.

While she continued to dodge his attacks, Aaron observed calmly. His eyes focused from one point to the other. The enemy’s armour, weapon, pipe, pressure tank and finally he had found a small weak spot. “He may be mobile for being heavily armoured but his shoulders and limb joints are exposed. Merely covered in light cloth to allow movement,” he thought.

Reaching to his waist, he opened up his pouch of knifes. He didn’t have too much training but his favorite sport had been darts. In his inexperience, Aaron had hoped that they wouldn’t be that much different when he bought them. Now, however, he was starting to worry. “Can I even hit him like this?”

Carefully pulling out one of the knives, his right hand shivering as he tried to aim, Aaron waited for a calm moment in the pirate’s movement to throw.

Tain saw him awaiting an opening but had trouble trying to make her enemy to stand still until she noticed a little oddity. “He’s O legged!”

With little run-up she approached him head on. Sizzling steam made the axe cleave at her right as she let herself fall. Her right leg spread forward, she used the momentum and the slimy wet floor to slide right through the gap between his legs, cutting with her swords into his ankles.

The man tumbled as the stinging pain appeared in his left foot, as the right one had just barely been missed.

In a quick motion, she got back onto her feet and backed off for Aaron to take his shot.

He flung his arm with a rapid flick of the wrist to throw the knife.. The knife flew, spinning and hitting right at the man’s shoulder. Albeit it was not with the top of the blade, it was the butt end that hit and bounced off.

The man’s attention now switching to Aaron, who swiftly grabbed another knife, he took a step forward with his injured foot and flinched from the pain in it.

“This is by far the most difficult job we had in a long, long time,” the pirate said.

“Job?” Aaron thought out loudly, audible enough for the pirate to hear him.

“Yes, what do you think we are? Actual pirates? Hell no!” he shouted. “I, Tomahs and my brothers Lan and Ken we are the leaders of this sabotaging ship!”

“Sabotage… I see, so that is what’s going on. You don’t destroy ships to kill and to scavenge, you-”

“We come with orders by big industries who want their competition to lose a shipment or two, to win on the market,” the pirate finished Aaron’s thought.

“Why would you be so heavily armed if you really just want to destroy the cargo?” Tain asked.

“Simple, really. It’s because we do enjoy shedding some blood.” His tongue wiping over his lips, he ran forward, bearing the pain in his foot, and went after Tain.

“Ten more,” Aaron thought as he took aim.

The fire which took care of the pirates earlier still burned strongly and spread along the walls and barrels. Explosions halted both pirate and daughter to take cover. Rum barrels which caught fire began to explode, one by one, spreading the fire even further.

Taking the opportunity, Aaron went for another throw, this time aiming for the neck of the pirate which was also poorly guarded, most likely since he was big enough to not have to worry about it. Throwing it at a high angle, it made a leap and spun before implanting it’s blade right between his neck and shoulder into the collarbone. Although it missed, Aaron took it well. “Yes!” Aaron shouted out childishly before coughing to return serious. “Nine.” he said as he aimed the next knife.

Tomahs was visually annoyed and enraged, marching up the the crew, mainly to get close to Aaron. His mind distracted, he didn’t notice Tain running up behind him and striking at his pressure tank, her rapier piercing into it. The man knew, and grinned. The rapier was stuck, and the hot pressurized steam came rushing out of the tank, right along her right arm and face. Desperately trying to pull out her sword, she gave up after the painful heat had burned her skin to blisters and fell onto the ground, screaming in pain.

Aaron’s eyes in anger, he threw the knife right at the pirates head, however missed and merely made a cut into his cheek.

“I’ve had enough of your knives!” the pirate said, taking a step forward and trying to swing his axe but a loud explosion sounded, halting the pirate, eventually falling sideways with blood flowing out of his head.

At the backdoor of this provision storage room stood a short old man with a long, yet slim, gun. A cloud of steam, released from the shot, hovered above the old man. Seeing the woman on the floor, he ran over to look at her, the light revealing his silhouette to be that of the Captain. “No, no, no! Not like this!”

The crew breathed slightly and ran up to the woman in scars and burn marks. Aaron acted quickly and lowered his body, back facing at her. “Get her on my back! If I can carry her to our room I can patch her up. I have medical supplies in there so hurry!”

The crew helped to carefully put her on his back, his hands holding up her legs next to his waist as he leaned forward to make sure she wouldn’t fall back.

“Can you really help her?” the Captain said desperately with sweat and tears running down his face. “I never intended my revenge to make her suffer like this as well!”

“Your revenge?” Aaron shook his head. “Nevermind that, we don’t have time.”

As the only way into their cabins was through the deck, Aaron kicked open the moldy front door. The fire’s smoke left above his head through the door ahead of him as he slowly walked out. He noticed that he was being watched and as the vision cleared up he saw both John and Larson before him, accompanied by two people in similar clothes to the man they just defeated. “Aaron?” John said. “Thank god you are alright but…”

“It’s fine, can you cover me while I bring her to our cabin?” Aaron asked, watching the pirate leaders.

“We don’t have a choice, do we?” Larson said, readying his blade.

“Go ahead and make sure she’s alright, we’ve got this!” John reassured but his eyes were quickly distracted by something above him. “Must’ve been birds.”

As Aaron hurried inside, John and Larson were ready to fight but the pirates seemed to be put off. “Hey Ken. If that man exited that place… does that mean?”

“Yes, Lan. They defeated Tomahs!”

The lancer raised his weapon, disks rotating and bullets flying at John and Larson who quickly split up, Larson right and John left. Digging themselves into the wooden surface, the bullets spread out in a large cone, still barely grazing the two short-term allies. Their clothes heavily soaked and tattered by the bullet storm were quickly cast off mid-run.

The mist of steam began to clear as they tried to pincer the two pirates. The bullet storm stopped, the disks just slowly spinning until they were halted by friction. Ken grabbed at his weapon in despair, not knowing why it had suddenly stopped but with one quick look at his pressure gauge he knew. “Something is wrong, I’m out of pressure!”

In reaction, Lan turned a wheel on his backpack pressure tank and detached a bendable pipe which lead all the way to the ship.

“Something must be wrong with our boilers, even our cloak of steam is fading!” Ken said.

Before they had time to see what could’ve happened to their boilers, they were already surrounded and attacked by Larson and John.

“Now we seem to be on equal power, isn’t that right?” John said to the sword wielder with a big grin as he swung his sword haphazardly.

“Not quite true,” Lan said, his sword bursting out steam to parry attack. “Unlike my partner, I didn’t use my pressure yet!”

Slowly separating the two brothers, John and Lan went off to the left half of the ship, clashing their swords all while Larson and the lancer played a game of lunge. Each of them trying to lunge and dodge at the other. Larson’s movements had slowed down and his face of sweat and condensate began to feel prickly and cold.

Not long after they began to battle, the steam completely vanished and all that was left was an icy cold sea air. Yet, each of them felt like something was around them, watching them. John eventually noticed two bright red dots illuminating under the clear sky through which the moon shone brightly.

Knowing what to do, John stood still. His sword held back, the tip pointing at the pirate like as if he was going for a full out lunge. Not letting this opening pass by, the pirate pressed the button on his handle as hard as he possibly could and swung his propulsed sword at the detective. “Only got one shot at this,” John thought as he stepped toward the pirate, using the last steam pressure he had left to block the attack, sliding on the slimy wet floor. Both of them were locked by the two opposing forces of the swords. Screeching sounded from the metal as both of their blades dented at the sheer force of the clash.

Then, like a cold breeze, the crimson eyes approached the pirate who felt the threat from behind him and quickly turned around, the pirate swinging his sword at it, his back facing John who used the momentum of the remaining propulsion force to get a cut into the tank. Moving aside, the steam forced its way through the small cut and blasted open a larger hole.

The enemy who the pirate swung his sword against was none other that Matt. The boy, as nimble as he is, ducked down, extended his claws in a sizzle and used the glove’s thrusters to perform an uppercut. The three claws tore their path through the man’s right half of the face. Gauging his eye and leaving him in devastating pain.

“Nice timing,” John said in a chuckle as he stretched his limbs. “To be fair I kinda forgot you were here, but let me guess. You messed with their boiler a few minutes ago?”

Quickly jumping to John’s side, Matt retracted his claws. “Yes. It was as easy as running over the sail mast and jumping over to their ship. Most of the pirates were already gone since they fought with you, all I had to do was go down, turn a lever and disconnect the pipes.”

“Not bad. You jumped in at the right time!” John said, hitting Matt’s shoulder in gratulations.

The pirate groveled on the ground, turning around. His left eye trying to catch a glimpse at his attacker. “Red eyes,” he laughed. “I see. So you are a slave, or rather an assassin,” the pirate said under his breath. “He bought you and makes you fight, how pitiful.”

“I am not a slave,” Matt growled. “He didn’t buy me either, he saved me and treats me like family. I am merely returning some of his kindness by working for him.”

“Alright then boy, then do me a favour and finish me!” the pirate said, his unsightly face aimed at Matt.

John and Matt looked at him in surprise.

“With only half my vision left and having been defeated, I serve no purpose now.” He coughed. “I wouldn’t get another mission like this after such a failure,” he said.

Matt walked up to him, claws extended and swung toward the pirate. Aiming for his jacket. He tore a long strip out of it, kneeled down and tied the pirate’s hands tightly.

“We don’t kill if we don’t have to,” John said and looked out for Larson’s fight. “We aren’t like you people after all.”

Watching the battle of lance and rapier unfold, John noticed that Larson had finally gotten the upper hand, since his weapon was by far lighter than the lance, it gave Larson a dexterous advantage. One pull of the trigger on the hilt was enough to finish the fight with a gunshot through the heart.

“You know, you should be glad I killed you,” Larson said, sitting down, huffing. “I only kill those who fought well enough to even make me use the gun.”

As he leaned over to see if the pirate was listening, he saw the dead and open eyes. His hand sliding over them, closing them to leave him in peace.

After the fighters caught their breath, they went inside to inform everyone of the won battle. The crew and men worked on putting out the fires and focused on the repairs while the Captain went back to the helm, setting sail to their destination.

Hours passed by as they cleaned up and Aaron treated all the wounded. None of the pirates died, other than the one’s fried in the fire and those who were shot. Tumbling in slow steps was Tain, her face covered halfway in bandages along with her arm. The crew, together with John, Aaron, Matt and even Larson were called on deck as the Captain stood at the helm to hold a speech, or at least, one might call it that.

“To all of ye, I am sorry. From the deepest barnacles of my heart, I’m sorry. If ‘t was not for my stupid attempt at revenge, we wouldn’t have had to fight this battle,” he looked at the four fighters and then swept his eyes over to his daughter. “You wouldn’t have been hurt.”

Morning sun rising at everyone’s backs, they turned around to see the harbour right ahead as the Captain continued.

“As of today, I will leave this ship and the remaining crew to me daughter. ‘Course, after she feels fit enough again. She fought one of them savages head on and risked ‘er life to protect her crew. She did what I couldn’t do! So please accept ‘er as the new capt’n!”

A silence came after his little speech, eyes darting around in wonder until John stomped his right foot on the floor to shake everyone up. “Aye,” he shouted with a smirk only to be followed by a loud synchronized “Aye!” by the entire crew. In joy and cheers, covered by hugs she looked over at John with tears in her eyes, or at least the one that wasn’t covered by the bandages. As people began to roll out the remaining few barrels of rum, she stepped over to John, Aaron and Matt.

“Thank you so much, all of you! Had you not come here, then,” she paused. “Then we would have likely become shark food. If you should ever need my help, just send word and I will come to your aid to repay the favour!”

John’s smirk grew bigger, “I’ll hold you to it!”

Early in the morning, when they finally arrived, they unloaded the cargo the detective group could finally lay foot on solid ground again. After they handed over the pirates to the police, the three of them wanted to thank Larson for the hard work, but he was nowhere to be found. Standing before the ship again, they watched the repairs going forth.

“You know,” Aaron said to Matt and John. “I can live with you making steam and junk at home much more than I can live with being the sea, it is really tiring.”

The two of them just replied in a relieved nod.

“Let’s head ho-” John realized a small problem mid sentence. “-me. Oh, crap. We need to use the ship again to get home don’t we?”

With one big sigh, the three of them waited out the day to get back home and head right into their next mission.

Next time on Steam’s Shadow, the group have to clear a case of a cold blood murder!